Built Some New Systems in the Past Few Days

[Soopafresh]

Fairly basic setup. Workstations for Work.

Just a few notes of what I liked and didn't like.

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SkyHawk Aluminum Cases (Lian Li Rip Offs)

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=11-117-030&DEPA=1

These are really nice for $38.99 - All thumb screws and slide out motherboard capability. Thick aluminum - just as thick as the real Lian Li..
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CoolMax 400 Watt P/S

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=17-159-023&DEPA=0

Cables are a bit too short, especially the motherboard power cables. Everything fit, but not without some work. However, these power supplies are whisper quiet. I would recommend a single 120mm fan for anyone buying a new P/S, but perhaps not this specific unit.
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DFI Lanparty UT NF3 Mobo

Nice. Easy to set up. Lots of options in the Bios if you want to O/C
1394 port / Spdif / 5.1 Sound/ Gigabit Ethernet / Hardware Firewall

They have on/off switches directly on the mobo if you want to test the board out of the case. The board is supposedly UV reflective for bling.

The manual was well documented.

Bought them because it was the only Nforce 3 in stock at Newegg

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Athlon 64 3000 Boxed

Heat Sink was easy to attach and fan is pretty quiet. Not bad for stock.

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XFX Nvidia 5200 -

A steal for $45.00 - These came with passive aluminum heatsinks, which makes them silent. No, not a fast card at all, but these PCs are for rendering still frames (mostly).

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Anyway, some observations....

[rallynavvie]

Umm, even though the people at NewEgg who bought that item gave it a good review I wouldn't trust that PSU farther than I can walk from a computer. One of my local video vendors used those exact models (400W 120mm fan Coolmax units) for 3 new SFF field mastering rigs. One never fired up even though it said it was tested, got it RMAd fine but the replacement dipped on the 5v and took out a board. Exact same thing happened on the the second SFF unit a few weeks later. The third has all the same hardware and is running fine with that PSU though. The rest of his hardware is pretty standard stuff but he didn't want to spend 3x the cash each for the new Antec PSUs (with modular cabling, even better for his SFF systems). Maybe it's other hardware but it's all typical brand items (Adaptec, Pioneer, etc.).